CWA Baffled by Court’s Lemon Twist     6/27/2005

Washington, D.C. – Concerned Women for America (CWA) is puzzled that our highest Court has held unconstitutional the display of the Ten Commandments in courthouses, but permitted displays on state capital grounds. We are gratified, however, that at least displays such as in the Texas capitol grounds case are permissible.

“How the majority tries to reconcile these two rulings and the ruling in the Kentucky courthouse case with its prior rulings upholding religious displays on public property is no doubt a stretch beyond reason,” said Jan LaRue, CWA’s chief counsel.“We had expected that ‘benevolent neutrality’ by government toward religion in the public square would eradicate the insufferable ‘malevolent hostility’ that has reigned for too long. The Court’s use of the Lemon v. Kurtzman test is based on the fallacy of the so-called ‘wall of separation between church and state.’”

The Ten Commandments are a religious text recognized as sacred by most Christians and Jews. Nonetheless, posting them on public property as part of a historical display is a legitimate secular purpose. The Commandments are an important part of our laws and history. Each of the Commandments has influenced our federal, state and local laws.

In 1995, the Colorado Supreme Court upheld a display of the Commandments on the Capitol grounds. The court said:

“Such secular intent of the donation is logical in light of the historical fact that the Ten Commandments has served over time as the basis for our national law. All the experts who testified at trial agreed that, at least to the extent that the Commandments established ethical or moral principles, they were expressions of universal standards of behavior common to all [W]estern societies. It was agreed that these moral standards, as influenced by the Judeo-Christian tradition, have played a large role in the development of the common law and have formed a part of the moral background for the adoption of the national [C]onstitution.”

“With this abominable courthouse ruling, you would expect to hear hammers and chisels resurfacing the Court’s own walls and doors that display Moses and the Commandments,” LaRue concluded.

For Information Contact:
Demi Bardsley
(202) 309-5978
media.cwfa.org

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